LONDON — A NATO plan to get its members to agree to significantly boost their military spending has been derailed by Canada and Germany before it could be even presented to alliance leaders on Thursday when they meet in Wales.

With a backdrop of the worsening situation in Ukraine, NATO’s top commander U.S. Gen. Philip Breedlove and alliance secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said they wanted to use the summit to push countries to commit to spending two per cent of their gross domestic product on defence.

The U.S., Estonia, the United Kingdom and Greece are the only alliance nations who have met that target.

But Germany and Canada have both said they won’t agree to NATO’s two per cent target.

“We are open to increasing military spending when and where it makes sense and in response to particular needs,” a senior Canadian government official said. “But the notion of setting an arbitrary target does not make sense.”

The prime minister’s spokesman Jason MacDonald said Tuesday night that Canada has agreed to “compromise language” with NATO allies. But Canada will still not formally commit to the two per cent target.

“We agree with our NATO allies that it is important to continue increasing our defence spending, and we have committed to doing so,” he said in an email.

“We have agreed to compromise language with our NATO allies and the commitment agreed to will be reflected in the NATO Summit statement to be issued later this week,” he added.

“Regarding the 2%, specifically, it is an aspirational target and will be acknowledged as such in the Summit statement.”

Government officials estimate NATO’s plan would require a commitment of at least $60 billion in new spending over the next decade, something the Conservatives believe the Canadian public will not support. Other analysts say that to meet NATO’s plan, military spending would have to climb from its current $19 billion a year to $38 billion annually.

U.S. defence secretary Chuck Hagel asked NATO members to bring their country’s finance ministers to the summit so military spending could be discussed. But Finance Minister Joe Oliver did not accompany Prime Minister Stephen Harper, yet another clear signal Canada is not on board with the spending increase.

Harper arrived in London on Tuesday and will attend the summit on Thursday and Friday.

Germany has also rejected NATO’s call for the two per cent commitment. Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s defence minister, says the amount of money being spent on the military is more important than measuring it as a percentage of the GDP.
Germany spends about 1.3 per cent of GDP, or around $44 billion, annually.

Defence analysts point out that under the Conservatives, spending on the Canadian military has fallen to one per cent of the GDP, going below the 1.3 per cent spent by Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government during the so-called “decade of darkness” of military spending cuts of the 1990s.

The Conservatives, however, counter that Canada’s defence budget has increased significantly since 2000, when it was a little more than $12 billion annually. It is now around $19 billion.

Besides the drop in spending in relation to the GDP, NATO officials have raised concerns that the Conservative government has started a slow retreat from the alliance in other key areas.

They point out that Canada decided against further contributions of troops to any followup NATO training mission in Afghanistan.

Equally concerning to other NATO countries is Canada’s decision to withdraw from the alliance’s various surveillance programs. The move, announced in 2011, will save about $90 million a year, according to documents obtained by the Citizen.

The shutdown of Canada’s contribution to NATO’s airborne warning aircraft, known as AWACS, will save about $50 million a year, according to the records obtained under the Access to Information law.

Another $40 million a year will be saved as a result of Canada’s withdrawal from NATO’s Alliance Ground Surveillance Program, which would see the purchase of advanced unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct surveillance and intelligence gathering.

Canada has been involved in NATO’s AWACS program for more than 25 years and the aircraft were seen as key to the alliance’s operations. AWACS were used by NATO during the Libyan war and are operating in support of the alliance’s response to the crisis in Ukraine.

The Canadian Forces contingent assigned to the AWACS aircraft was the last major Canadian military presence in Europe.
Canada’s bases and installations there were closed decades ago and troops returned home.

In November 2013, some of the concerns emerged publicly when NATO deputy secretary-general Alexander Vershbow warned that some in the alliance were questioning Canada’s commitment. He told a conference in Halifax that there was “a perception that Canada is de-emphasizing NATO a little bit in its broader security policies.”

He said his comments reflected “the chatter” at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.

Conservative government officials counter that Canada’s contribution to NATO’s response to Russia is proof of its commitment.

Ian Davis, director of NATO Watch, an organization based in the United Kingdom, agrees with the Canadian and German governments that the two per cent figure is arbitrary and that a country’s defence capabilities would be a better measure of its contribution.

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